Italian Micro Budget Film Remembers The Past, Uses Technology Of The Future

(Firenze, Italia--September 28, 2012) With the support of The Tuscan Film Commission, a small film made with the RED EPIC® camera technology, is set for Digital DCP Projection debut at the Odeon in Florence Italy on October 10, 2012.

FREE SCREENING.

LIGHT & SILVER : The Photographic Life of George Tatge is a micro budget digital film captured with RED EPIC® technology.

George Tatge is a fine art photographer. His camera is made of wood. For him, creating images requires chemistry, paper, vegetable based film stocks and great care and patience. His camera is capable of loading only one frame at a time and when he photographs a subject it usually means making one image. His process is profound and with the proliferation of digital photography the ritual of his art form is a fascinating study of how we once did things. It tells a story of the absolute magic it took to create photographs with analog film. George Tatge articulates his feelings about working with traditional film.

"We live in a digital photographic age but not long ago producing a photograph was a detailed chemical process. I appreciate the ritualistic aspects and the physicality of photographing with a view camera. The slowness of the procedure, the adjustments of the optics and the film plane, the concentrated and meditative quality of it all. And seeing an image gradually appear almost magically in a liquid solution has always excited me. There is a lot of mystery in this method and I still prefer to make photographs in this way."

Digital Technologies have opened up new possibilities for cinema. Filmmaker David Battistella uses the same camera as many blockbuster Hollywood features have to capture an intimate personal portrait of an artist. George Tatge's photographic and artistic process has been elegantly and patiently captured on the most sophisticated digital camera in the world, the RED EPIC®.

"I had this incredible digital tool in my hands and I wanted to create something that would remind us of what came before digital. I love film and the mood it helps create in photography and film. When I did my first tests I could see that this camera carries the same aesthetic as film, but in a compact digital camera body. Filming George at work capturing these massive negatives, with a camera made of wood, was a way for me to use technology of the future to remember the past."

The film also features music by George's son William Tatge, a jazz pianist and composer who lives in Brooklyn, NY. The soundtrack is the perfect accompaniment to the style and texture of George's images. In the film George tells a story of how his young son sees "color" in a black and white print. Battistella says that the soundtrack which now informs the film was a happy accident.

"I only found out after we finished filming that William is a an accomplished musician. George handed me the CD and I had a listen. Somehow I could really feel George's work in William's music. I could hear, at the same time, the way the work of unique artists from different disciplines really complimented one and other. They also happen to be father and son."